Contemplating The U.S. Navel

I am about as liberal as they come, and please don't expect to change me, though I do sometimes sneak up on you with a surprise (pro-death penalty, for instance). Although gainfully employed as a full-time Marketing Manager, I keep my toes in the freelance pool as a journalist, theater critic, blogger and proud President of the Illinois Woman's Press Association. To read my work on this page is to find vignettes about Chicago, Hollywood, my own turbulent life, and of course, my number one passion: local and national politics.

To my regular readers: Thank you for coming by this week.
You're in for a treat. I am trying something new as one who has
been fortunate enough to accrue perspective and
colleagues I deeply admire on this site. As Open Salon is closed to
fresh talent and new writers, I… Read full post »

It was several minutes after the three of them, dressed in
matching Iowa Hawkeye "bibs,"
took to honking the horn and chanting "Big Ten Champs!" on loop as
we cruised the highway, that I really regretted coming on the trip.
I hated long car journeys to begin with, and the obnoxious… Read full post »

It’s been awhile since I
wrote about the struggle to find some relief from an extreme,
medical science confounding case of pompholyx eczema. Also known as
dyshidrotic eczema, the condition is a really unfortunate
autoimmune disease that manifests itself in swollen, pus-filled
blis… Read full post »

There are two personal items on
which I refuse to spend more than $15 – sunglasses and
gloves. The reason is simple. I can’t be trusted to hang onto
them. Case in point: today is February 12th and I have
managed to lose four pairs of gloves and mittens/… Read full post »

While motherhood, especially the
birthing part of the equation, was a life choice I ruled out long
ago, that doesn’t mean I hate children. On the contrary, I
love them. Little people, especially those 14 and under, tend to
get me, as I do them. I can’t decide if my… Read full post »

“Yesterday, I stood outside
waiting for the Chicago Avenue bus. I saw one approaching and my
heart leapt. Then the bastard drove right by us, resulting in
another 30 minutes of trying to withstand the wind. I just started
crying. I am so sick of being cold.”

The theme of this week’s
Al-Anon meeting was “Resentment.” It was examined and
discussed from a variety of angles. But the larger lesson imparted
was that holding onto it does no harm to anyone but thyself. As the
great Nelson Mandela once said, “Resentment is like drinking
po… Read full post »

So it’s a New Year and
I’ve been nursing a broken heart for a month. It’s
getting a little easier everyday to wake up alone and accept the
fact that my ex-partner was, in many ways, not who I thought he
was. I knew enough to be wary of the… Read full post »

Over the year-end holidays, as a society, we tend to take a break
from things. The endless rat race of work, household chores,
dinner, sleep and repeat is interspersed with welcome down time to
focus on the important things. Broadcast television programs go on
hiatus in deference to the absent/…

The experiences and diversions of
which I availed myself this week, in an attempt to put back
together the pieces of my shattered heart and move on with my life,
were nothing if not diverse. As is the case with the dissolution of
any toxic relationship, receding from crisis… Read full post »

This may seem like an odd post right on the heels of so much
Thanksgiving happiness and gratitude, but life is full of twists
and turns that way. I did not write this material as a blog post. I
actually wrote and sent this to my now former flame earlier
this… Read full post »

Yes, I have seen this meme work its
way across Facebook over the course of November. I thought about
participating, but my brain is usually too stream-of-consciousness
for that level of daily content commitment, and I refuse to violate
my personal rule of one status update per day (any more than… Read full post »

Several months ago, when the
burning, itching, growing blisters on my palms were diagnosed as
chronic pompholyx eczema, I lapsed into a funk. I wasn’t
ready to accept all the lifestyle changes I had to make, and
what’s more, I needed some time to metaphorically stomp my
feet… Read full post »

“It’s no longer that I
bitterly wish them ill for all they’ve done (or not done).
Time, distance and therapy have resolved those feelings. It’s
more that the longer they exist and go about their daily lives in
unrepentant silence, the more impossible it is for me to absolve
th… Read full post »

Issues of life and death have been
at the forefront of many recent personal musings. As a writer and
former aspiring singer/actress with a flair for the dramatic,
I’ve become more cognizant of the ease with which I throw
around mortality idioms:

Anyone even slightly acquainted
with me knows I love my little sister. Before I migrated to Open
Salon on May 5, 2010, we co-authored Which End is Up!? on
the Google Blogspot platform. Jenny dragged me kicking and
screaming into starting that bad boy when I had nary a professional
writer’s/… Read full post »

For lovers of the NFL, one of the big stories of the season so
far is the resurgence of Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning.
The 37 year-old has simply been on fire, and in the course of a
career filled with numerous triumphs and milestones, the athlete is
poised to… Read full post »

I tend to view myself as an independent thinker. I’ve been a
target of mass marketing, commercialism and political ideology like
everyone else. But historically, I’ve congratulated myself on
the ability to understand exactly what I’m hearing and
maintain my own truths agains/… Read full post »

I have lived in the Rogers Park
neighborhood along Chicago’s far North lakefront for nearly
four years. In that time I have patronized a number of the vibrant
community’s watering holes, theaters and restaurants.
It’s hard to keep up with the rapidly gentrifying neighb… Read full post »

I didn’t enter the world allergic to bee stings. Time was,
the pierce of an angry wasp’s lance didn’t accomplish
much more than giving some pain and briefly slowing my tomboyish
romps. However, through repeated encounters in a variety of strange
venues (a sting on the inner… Read full post »